WASHINGTON—Alexis Wilkins is a conservative country music artist whose boyfriend, Kash Patel, is the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. When the two began dating three years ago, they became a kind of conservative celebrity couple. But Wilkins never imagined that she would soon star in the internet’s pet conspiracy theory — one that would drown her and her family in deluge of threats.
“I’ve been in the political sphere for a second,” she explained in a phone interview with The Daily Wire. “You get crazy things from the left, you’re kind of used to it if you’re speaking up about things that you believe in or talking positively about America. I kind of thought that [direction] would be where this would continue, just maybe more dramatic, but what’s happened is…the internet has just become a place where you can just say whatever you want and affect people’s lives, and it really reverberates.
Internet users and commentators have accused 27-year-old Wilkins of being an Israeli spy, a “honeypot” Mossad agent, assigned to manipulate her 45-year-old boyfriend as he leads the FBI. Wilkins, who is Christian, has repeatedly denied the claims, which she calls absurd.
“There’s security issues, there’s safety issues, the death threats are graphic, and, there are a lot of them,” she added. “You have to think about your house getting swatted, you deal with stuff where people are trying to harm you. That is the intent, and that’s been very real, very quickly for me in the last couple of months.”
Their relationship, ages, and personal lives have been scrutinized publicly, as has Patel’s use of the FBI director’s plane for personal trips to see Wilkins (as FBI director, Patel cannot fly commercial and must use the plane for legitimate and needed purposes, but his recent trip to Nashville drew heavy criticism).
A source close to the couple told The Daily Wire that Patel “knew Alexis was the one as soon as he met her,” and that she recently moved in with him in Washington, D.C., but spends time in Nashville with her family. They will likely be engaged and married soon, that source shared.
In the meantime, the country music artist is grappling with the consequences of viral internet rumors.
An FBI spokesperson confirmed to The Daily Wire that Wilkins has received “hundreds of credible threats.” Wilkins now has a security detail, that spokesperson confirmed, based on security assessments of credible threats conducted due to her connection with Patel.
One concern, based on some of the threats, is that Wilkins might be kidnapped.
“She’s not getting threatened to be kidnapped by cartels because they think she’s cute,” a source close to Wilkins shared. “It’s because she’s a good hostage candidate.”
Photo courtesy of Alexis Wilkins.
Wilkins receives threatening messages almost daily on social media. The Daily Wire reviewed a number of these messages and posts, showing individuals fantasizing about killing her, graphically describing acts of sexual violence, promising to kill her within specific time frames, posting her address, phone number, and those of Patel and her parents online, and more.
“I don’t feel very comfortable going in public,” she shared, asked how this affects her daily life. “I don’t leave my house a lot.”
Less explicit but still threatening rhetoric is also publicly visible on Wilkins’ social media posts as well. For example, one commenter posted on an Instagram post of Wilkins and Patel at his swearing in: “I hope these two don’t plan on going out in public. Or having a public speaking event in an amphitheater.”
“People know what to say,” she said, discussing the messages she shared with The Daily Wire. “These are not just hyperbolic threats, these are credible threats that [mention] things about you going in public together, things about you doing a public speaking engagement, things about you doing a concert outside…They want you to stop living your life. They want you to be afraid.”
About two weeks ago, Wilkins shared, her parents’ home was swatted. This means that someone called in a false emergency at their home with the goal of prompting a massive law enforcement response. Swatting is particularly dangerous since victims may find themselves in violent or dangerous situations, depending how they respond to the law enforcement presence, since a SWAT team might be responding to what has been described to them as an imminent threat, a bomb situation, or domestic violence.
Wilkins and her family now have to talk through security protocols that have never occurred to them, planning out how to respond when, for example, someone calls the house demanding to know if Wilkins herself is present — a sign that a swatting may be imminent.
“Swatting doesn’t only affect your house, you have to realize that people are also looking for your family, especially when it’s an allegation that is so untrue…you’re getting called a spy, so people are digging into your history, people are trying to find your parents, people are calling people that you’ve known,” Wilkins said. “Colleagues of mine have received calls asking for information about my family, some of them unaware of how to respond and will give a name or give my mom’s maiden name or give things that are helpful in order to find us.”
“So it hasn’t just been me,” she said. “It’s been my family as well.”
View this post on Instagram
Wilkins has continued to attend speaking or singing engagements with organizations like Turning Point USA and the Young America’s Foundation. She is suing a number of political influencers and commentators for suggesting she is an agent of Israeli intelligence. And she says she is determined not to cower but to stand up for herself, arguing that “bullies respond to strength.”
“I’m so happy to support the person that I love, but I’m not the director of the FBI,” Wilkins said. “I’m here to support, and my parents are also…but ultimately, this is not something that they signed up for, and I think people forget that when they’re digging for what they think is the truth, they’re doing it in a way that is not helpful, and it’s very dangerous.”
Reflecting on the death of Charlie Kirk, who she knew through her work with TPUSA — at whose events she often sings the national anthem — Wilkins pointed out how massively important Kirk’s faith was to him, and how he talked about how he wanted to be remembered for his faith.
She is very proud of her own Christian faith. Yet now, she is “being called something that I’m not, a spy for another country, essentially accusing me of treason, which is horrific enough, but I’m a Christian.”
“I grew up Armenian. My family’s Armenian,” she explained. “I grew up Christian and I’m very proud of that.”
“His legacy of his faith and the things that he represented, I think that it obviously is a huge void that we all feel now, because of who he was personally and who he was in the movement,” she reflected, sharing how the day after Kirk’s assassination, she had to come to terms with the fact that Patel would be speaking at an outdoor event, and she could do nothing but wait to hear that he was ok.
“It’s that horrible feeling,” she said. “How radicalized do people become? Is this a chain of events? There’s no way to make yourself feel better about it.”
She has considered ignoring much of the criticism and threats. But, she says, she wants to be a “role model for people who are being attacked, for even just their views, no matter what side they are on.”
“I think that everyone should have the right to say what they want to say,” she said. “I love the Constitution. I love the First Amendment in this country.”
And asked what she would tell the internet folk who are posting about her, she responded: “If it feels fun behind your keyboard to hate someone, your heart is probably in the wrong place and you also probably have some details wrong.”
“Before you run with what sounds like the most fun, horrifying and cliquey conspiracy theory, there’s probably a more common sense result, a more common sense answer.”
.png)
.png)
